6.7.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
Super audio: The next wave of digital sound will be in high definition
Personal technology reporter Jonathan Sidener reports on the advent of high-definition audio, and quotes UCSD music professor Peter Otto as saying, "the most interesting thing about HD audio is the idea of music recorded for and played back in high-definition surround sound." Otto is part of UCSD's Center for Research in Computing and the Arts and is closely involved in the development of new audio research labs for the Calit2 building.

[more]

6.3.2004
"Los Angeles Times"
Big Donor Is Donald Bren, UC Irvine Says
UC Irvine officials on Wednesday identified Irvine Co. Chief Executive Donald Bren as the anonymous donor who gave $20 million to UC Irvine's School of Information and Computer Science in December.
[more]

6.3.2004
"The Orange County Register"
A concrete thank you
UCI said Wednesday that its fast-growing computer school has been named the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science. And the $50.6 million research and office complex the school will break ground on next Wednesday will be called Bren Hall.
[more]

6.3.2004
"Irvine World News"
UCI School of Information and Computer Science Named in Honor of Donald Bren
UC Irvine's School of Information and Computer Science (ICS) will celebrate a new name, the promise of a new home, the generosity of its major benefactor and the appointment of its first dean Wednesday at a campus ceremony for supporters and invited civic, business and political leaders. Donald Bren made a $20 million gift to ICS in December that equaled the largest gift ever to UCI.
The event is not open to the public.
[more]

6.3.2004
"Daily Pilot"
Buildings filling to the Bren at UC Irvine
A big donation and a passed bond initiative are giving the nationally ranked School of Information and Computer Science a new name: The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. "It all came together, not quite simultaneously, but we had an amazing year - becoming a school, the bonds getting passed, getting the gift," Dean [Debra] Richardson said. "This is really a transformational gift."
[more]

5.31.2004
"Crain's Cleveland Business"
Gaming a Virtual Reality at Case
UCI MENTIONED:    Within the next few months, an engineering student doing homework might face a tough choice: Should he or she use a Microsoft Xbox or a Sony PlayStation2? CWRU has awarded a $375,000 Provost's Opportunity Fund grant to its Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department to set up a new Virtual Worlds laboratory. The idea of the lab is to help students learn how to write software programs for computer games and virtual reality simulations and how to refine gaming hardware.

Virtual reality and gaming laboratories exist at schools that include the University of California at Irvine s Calit2 Game Culture and Technology Lab, the University of Michigan and the University of Buffalo.

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has developed an Entertainment Technology Center that offers a master's degree in entertainment technology, which is conferred jointly by the university's College of Fine Arts and the School of Computer Science. The web site for Carnegie Mellon's center states that other U.S. schools with similar programs include Georgia Tech, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Florida and the University of Southern California.
[more]

5.26.2004
"Orange County Register"
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Observers say the game industry is changing to include demographics far beyond teenage boys. "The Sims" introduced a virtual world full of ordinary characters and captured a 60 percent female audience, according to its publisher, Electronic Arts in Redwood City. But the process has been slow, said Celia Pearce, associate director of Cal (IT)²'s Game Culture and Technology Lab at the Universityof California, Irvine. 
[more]

5.21.2004
"Science Magazine"
Number Theory: Proof Promises Progress in Prime Progressions
Writer Barry Cipra reports on "a stunning breakthrough in the theory of prime numbers" by Ben Green and Terence Tao, who proved that an infinite number of arithmetic progressions of prime with four terms (until now, it was only proved with three terms.) The article quotes Calit2  chief scientist Ronald Graham as saying the mathematicians' complicated 50-page proof is "just amazing... It's such a big jump from what came before."  
[more]

5.20.2004
"@UCSD"
Making Nice with Mice
A 200-word summary of the Smart Vivarium project led by CSE professor, Serge Belongie. 
[more]

5.20.2004
"The Toronto Star"
E to the Power of 3
As video games become ever more part of mainstream society, an increasing number of schools are offering video games studies as part of the curriculum. That means more students are going home and playing games as part of their homework. Most of the schools group them with the computer science or engineering degrees, so you slackers out there best start brushing up on your mathematics. Princeton, CarnegieMellonUniversity, M.I.T. and the Universityof Californiaat Irvineall offer classes in video game studies.  

*Not online*

5.19.2004
"Scientific American"
Security at Your Fingertips
In the magazine's June 2004 issue, Mark Alpert writes about fingerprint recognition technologies and mentions Digital Persona, a company co-founded by Serge Belongie, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD and an academic participant in Calit2.

**Not online**  

5.17.2004
"Orange County Business Journal"
Nicholas Pulls No Punches as Guest Lecturer at UCI
Top tech executive, Henry Nicholas, was a guest lecturer in at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. He told a group of 25 engineering and other students to go after the biggest markets and competitors.
[more]

5.16.2004
"Orange County Register"
High-tech Caregiving Offers a Wealth of Promise and Savings
Eric Dishman talks about technology for virtual caregiving at the recent Alzheimer's disease conference sponsored by the Orange County Alzheimer's Association and the Universityof California, Irvine.  
[more]

5.12.2004
"CNN.com"
Colleges offering video game studies
The new program is one of many at major universities across the country. The Universityof Southern California recently announced a partnership with the world's largest video game publisher, Electronic Arts, to create a program in video game design that will offer a master's degree in fine arts. Other institutions offering classes in video game studies include Princeton, Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institution of Technology, and the Universityof California, Irvine. There are also specialized schools, like DigiPen in Redmond, Washington, that teach nothing but game design.  
[more]

5.12.2004
"Daily Pilot"
Students who can't hack it should study
It would take someone with extensive computer knowledge to get around typical security precautions in a school's computer system, said Kenneth Kraemer, director of information systems at UC Irvine's Graduate School of Management. Some students have a natural knack for computer hacking, while others pick it up from family and friends, or from online chats with other hackers.  
[more]

5.7.2004
"InnovationMexico.com"
Mexican science and technology dignitaries stretch collaboration ties with California institute
The Mexican National Council for Science and Technology's website reported on a delegation of 30 Mexican representatives from science and technology organizations and private companies that attended Calit2's All-hands Meeting in April at UCSD. According to Carlos Duarte, Director of the Office of CONACyT in the USA, the "visit was the culmination of a series of meetings held previously in Mexico and the U.S. with the purpose of identifying projects of mutual interest as the basis for more long-range collaboration between the two countries." 
[more]

5.6.2004
"BBC News"
Virtual skin looking even better
Reporting for the BBC's online edition, Alfred Hermida reports on a new technique for simulating the effect of light on skin, and interviewed Calit2 participant and UCSD computer science professor Henrik Wann Jensen for the profile. Jensen is quoted as saying the technique "is being used in almost all visual effects for movies and there are a number of game companies looking at how to adapt the technique for games as well."
[more]

5.6.2004
"The Orange County Register"
UCI Engineering Instructor Honored
UCI MENTIONED: Jia Grace Lu, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, has been named one of the nation's most promising young scientists and engineers by the Bush administration. Lu, who works in the field of spin electronics, was selected along with 56 other researchers to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The awards were conferred Monday at the White House by John Marburger III, the president's science adviser. Lu, 35, has "advanced the frontiers of knowledge in spin electronics, considered to be the defining concept of 21st-century electronics," the administration said. "Her work combines concepts in faster, more-reliable electronics (and) nanotechnology."
[more]

5.5.2004
"University of Chicago Magazine"
Father of the Grid
In the magazine's April issue, Amy Braverman profiles distributed computing and Grid pioneer Ian Foster, director of the Distributed Systems Lab at Argonne National Laboratory. The article goes on to quote Calit2 director Larry Smarr as dubbing a landmark 1995 supercomputing conference "the Woodstock of the Grid." Also mentioned in the profile: Smarr's co-PI on the OptIPuter project, Thomas A. DeFanti, director of the University of Illinois–Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Lab. 
[more]

5.3.2004
"Podium Press"
Broadcom Co-FounderEstablishes Research Competition at UCI
Dr. Henry T. Nicholas III, co-founder and retired co-chairman and CEO of Broadcom Corp., has established a $300,000 prize competition, to be administered by the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which will promote collaboration among UCI`s faculty. The Nicholas Foundation Prize for Cross-Disciplinary Research will recognize ''high-risk/high-yield'' pilot research investigations that are relevant to Calit2`s mission and hold potential for leading to further discoveries or large-scale extramural funding.
[more]

4.27.2004
"United Press International"
Nanotransistors Promise Super Speed
Researchers at the Universityof California, Irvine, said the new technology could lead to better cell phones and much faster computers -- perhaps as much as 1,000 times faster. "Since the invention of nanotube transistors, there have been theoretical predictions that they can operate very fast," said Peter Burke, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and lead researcher. "Our work is the first to show that single-walled nanotube transistor devices can indeed function at very high speeds."

4.27.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
Paperless prescriptions on horizon
In an article subtitled "Doctors to transmit orders via computer," writer Leslie Berestein report that the San Diego County Medical Society Foundation "has been working to devise a way for medical institutions to exchange patient information electronically within five years." The foundation notes that "it is working with the county health department and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at the University of California in San Diego and Irvine."
[more]

4.26.2004
"Cox Channel 4"
Homeland Security in San Diego
For a wide-ranging report on efforts at San Diego universities to work on homeland security issues, the program San Diego Insider interviewed San Diego State University professor Eric Frost about his university's new Master's degree program in homeland security. Frost is an active participant in Calit2. Also interviewed: Frieder Seible, dean of UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, and co-chair of Calit2's governing board, about UCSD's new blast simulation facility at Camp Elliott.
*To view this .mpg file requires Windows Media Player, Quicktime or RealOne Player. [Video]

4.20.2004
"San Diego Metropolitan"
Entree Wireless and Calit2
The magazine's online daily report reports that the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology will deploy Entree Wireless's technology solution to provide high-speed wireless connectivity in the field for first responders in disaster situations, and quotes UCSD division director Ramesh Rao as saying "these mobile gateways will be a cornerstone of the communications networks we are developing for homeland security and other purposes." 
[more]

4.20.2004
"San Diego Magazine"
WiFi/3G Gateway Makes Commercial Entree
The magazine's online service reports that "startup Entree Wireless has its first customer -- the same outfit that spawned the its fundamental technology. The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Cal(IT)², will use Entree's MANPack mobile wireless gateway to deploy high-speed wireless Internet access for first responders in disaster situations. Financial details were not disclosed."   
[more]

4.19.2004
"WirelessIQ"
Entree, Cal-IT Deploy Security Solution
The online news service reports on a deal whereby Entree Wireless, a leading developer of Mobile Wireless Gateways, will supply is mobile WiFi access gateways to a project at UCSD to improve communications for medical first responders in a crisis situation. Same article appears in 3GNewsroom.com at http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news
/apr_04/news_4412.shtml. 
[more]

4.13.2004
"The Times Union (Albany)"
At RPI, games aren't kid stuff
UCI MENTIONED: RPI expects 100 students to enroll in the minor during its first year. It's not alone in this new field of "arcademia." Last month, Princeton held a session on video game studies. Carnegie Mellon University, Southern Methodist University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Irvine are among the schools offering programs or courses in game design.
First Paragraph: Students taking Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's latest minor, in video-game studies, won't have to pay their tuition in quarters. And Tetris is not a prerequisite. Game Studies is serious stuff. As video games become a major industry and a part of more than just prepubescent lives, they are also earning a home within academia.

4.12.2004
"San Diego Metropolitan"
Daily Business Report
The monthly magazine's April 12 online edition reports that Calit2's division director at UCSD, Ramesh Rao, "has been appointed the first holder of the Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Telecommunications and Information Technologies in the university's Jacobs School of Engineering," where he is a professor of electrical and computer engineering. QUALCOMM CEO Irwin Jacobs is quoted as saying "engineering students do benefit greatly from interaction with noted faculty, such as Professor Rao, who have achieved distinguished careers in theory and in applied technology. We are pleased to support Professor Rao's commitment to make UCSD an even stronger source of world-class technology leaders." 
[more]

3.31.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
Report: State climbs in high-tech rankings
Staff writer Dean Calbreath reports on a new survey of California's competitiveness as a high-tech center, and quotes San Diego Telecom Council executive director Julia Wilson as pointing to breakthroughs on university campuses, noting that "at UC San Diego, there's a new $400 million center for wireless education" -- an apparent reference to the state-and-industry funded California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. The new Milken Survey places California second after Massachusetts as a high-tech center. 
[more]

3.29.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
UCSD engineers to lead project
In its March 26 edition, the newspaper's Business Briefing column reports that UCSD engineers "will lead a six-university effort to help the Army adopt the use of lightweight wireless equipment in setting up mobile communications networks on the battlefield. The project will receive approximately $3 million in Pentagon funding over three years, with an option to extend funding to $5.25 million over five years." Some of the research will be carried out by Calit2-affiliated researchers at both UCSD and UC Irvine.
[more]

3.26.2004
"Los Angeles Times"
Actions Morphs Into Art
Three decades after "Pong" ricocheted into popular culture, video games are bouncing into the rarefied world of fine art. A vocal clique of academics, curators and critics is asking whether digital muscleman Duke Nukem deserves the same study and reverence as, say, a Degas sculpture. But if art is, as novelist Leo Tolstoy once observed, the passing of an experience from one person to another, "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" cannot so easily be dismissed as simple engineering. Celia Pearce, an instructor of game design and Calit2 new media arts layer researcher at UCI, found the game so engrossing that it drowned out the Friday afternoon hum outside her Venice loft. Pearce navigated the game's gothic dungeons on her custom-built laptop giving her insight which included her quote from a graphics perspective, I think this is beautiful.
[more]

3.11.2004
"Irvine World News"
Bartenders know more about you than you think
Regarding Swipe's demonstration of data mining, Celia Pearce, research and external relations manager for Calit2 at UCI is quoted as saying, "One of the things that I like about this is that it's using technology in a very compelling way to look at something that is very everyday that people take for granted," she said. "This data mining phenomenon that is being done by corporations is happening all the time and most people aren't aware of it, meanwhile, everyone is freaking out about the government and the Patriot Act and privacy. But corporations have pretty much unlimited access to us."
[more]

3.10.2004
"89.3 KPCC"
'Swipe' Exhibit Highlights Our Lack of Privacy
A performance art piece at UC Irvine shows how much of our personal information is publicly available -- just with the swipe of our driver's license.
[more]

3.6.2004
"The Feature.com"
Putting Wireless to the Test(bed)
David Pescowitz reports in the online news service on the $5.5 million, NSF-funded project called WHYNET, which includes UCSD and four other UC schools, linking together their wireless testbeds into a "meta-testbed." Calit2 division director Ramesh Rao is quoted saying that "the point of WHYNET is to enable users to go across a single federated testbed and get access to all of the unique capabilities of the various campuses." The article notes that at UCSD, "researchers there have demonstrated cellular-based tele-medicine systems that enable physicians to diagnose stroke patients remotely via mobile audiovisual links." 
[more]

3.4.2004
"National Academies"
National Academy of Sciences Elects Treasurer and Councilors
In a news release, the National Academies announced in Washington, D. C. that the National Academy of Sciences has elected "Ronald L. Graham, Irwin and Joan Jacobs Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of California, San Diego... to a third term as the Academy's treasurer. During his four-year term beginning July 1, 2004, he will continue to be responsible for financial oversight of the Academy and the National Research Council." Graham is also Calit2's Chief Scientist.   
[more]

3.3.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
On tap: a 10,000-volt view of deep oceans
Columnist Neil Morgan writes that the NSF has asked Congress for $200 million to establish Project ORION (Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Network), a network of fiber-optic observatories on the ocean floors. The article quotes Calit2 director Larry Smarr as saying we "watch America's research vehicle maneuver on the surface of Mars, a hundred or two million miles away. But we know far too little about our oceans, which make up two-thirds of Earth and are our last great unknown." SIO director John Orcutt, who leads the project, is also mentioned. 
[more]

2.25.2004
"Technology Review"
Wearable Devices Add Strength
In the February issue of "Technology Review" magazine, Maria Feng, layer leader of Environment and Civil Infrastructure at UCI, is cited as a leader in wearable MEMS technology. 
[more]

2.19.2004
"Medical Research Law & Policy Report"
Inventors Say Automated Cage Monitoring Promises Better Lab Results, Animal Care
According to this Bureau of National Affairs publication, UCSD recently announced that it is developing a system to monitor rats, mice, and other lab animals automatically. "Instead of human eyes, a camera connected to a computer monitors the cages. Pattern recognition software enables the computer to track each animal and monitor its behavior," writes Alexander Otto, about the system dubbed a "Smart Vivarium." Jacobs School computer science professor Serge Belongie, who is leading the Calit2 project, is quoted as saying that "being able to track several animals in the same cage--as opposed a single animal in a single cage--is [new]." 
[more]

2.17.2004
"Reuters"
Hollywood Honours Its Geeks
In a report from Los Angeles reprinted by CNN and other outlets, the news service reported that actress Jennifer Garner "proved her range as actress when a Hollywood audience got to hear the star of ABC's spy drama "Alias" expound on the merits of subsurface light scattering in translucent materials" -- a computer-graphics technology pioneered by UCSD professor Henrik Wann Jensen, an academic participant in Calit2. The article noted that the technology "has been used to make more realistic-looking skin on digital film characters."   
[more]

2.10.2004
"Wired News"
Cool New Ideas to Save Brains
San Diego-based Randy Dotinga reports on the International Stroke Conference held recently, and notes that "researchers from the University of California at San Diego unveiled an Internet-based system to help emergency rooms get expert advice... American doctors have been experimenting with ways to allow faraway doctors to see test results and examine stroke patients through video and computer links. According to a study of the online diagnoses of 25 patients, the Internet link allowed doctors to boost the number of patients given tPA." The StrokeDoc system was co-developed by researchers at the Jacobs School and Calit2. 
[more]

1.26.2004
"San Diego Union-Tribune"
Virtual Pilots
Jan. 25-Helena Bristow typically spends more than two hours a day commuting from her home in Vista to her job at UCSD. So she leapt at the chance when the engineers at work asked her if she wanted to test a free, personalized traffic information service. The traffic-report system, now available to the public at http://traffic.calit2.net, puts San Diego on the cutting edge of mobile traffic directions, part of a growing field known as telematics, which involves technology to help drivers. Engineers at Calit2, the University of California, San Diego-based California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, say theirs is the only such system offering customized traffic reports. 
[more]

1.16.2004
"@UCSD"
Distant Diagnosis
In the inaugural January 2004 edition of a new quarterly magazine published by the UCSD Alumni Association, writer Christopher Vaughn reports on the StrokeDoc project, calling it "a marriage of medicine, computer science and cellular technology [that] brings new hope to stroke victims. The Jacobs School's principal investigator on the project -- ECE professor and Calit2 division director Ramesh Rao -- is quoted as saying "the features and the quality of the system that the physicians were asking for turned out to be quite demanding." 
[more]

1.5.2004
"Electronic Engineering Times"
Between Rock, Hard Place
In the Dec. 22 edition, Ron Wilson reports that "static timing analysis is one of the pilings upon which the whole edifice of modern IC [integrated circuit] design has been erected," but that the assumptions on which the technique is based "may no longer hold water." Jacobs School computer science professor and Calit2 academic participant Andrew Kahng is quoted extensively in the article. 
[more]